Sooke swimmers dive in to new season with personal bests

Sooke’s Island Swimmers have been busy in the pool this January. Starting the new year with a bang, on January 11 Nicholas Ralph, Lucy Bridal, Tekahra Tarnowski, Daniel Prissick, Christian Zakharchuk, Tyrell Wydenes and Katherine Lin all swam personal bests in at least one race during the Blue Green meet at the Saanich Commonwealth Pool. Lucy Bridal won her heat in the 100m freestyle and took 12 seconds off her best time.

The Vancouver Island Regionals were held in Duncan at the Cowichan Aquatic Centre on January 17-19. This is one of three championship meets that heralds the conclusion of the short course season (swimmers race in a 25m pool).

Ten teams from all over the island participated in this meet, and Sooke had one swimmer racing. Clarke Hopkins dropped 18 seconds off of his 200m freestyle time to place fifth overall. This earned him an 11-and-under AA time (2:55:06) time, qualifying him to swim at the BC AA’s in Chiliwack at the end of February.

Island Swimming dominated in the points and finished as the clear winner.

Finally, a congratulations to our pre-competitive swimmers, Kaia Chandler, Gwen MacLeod, Matthew Mitchell, Louisa Ralph, Nathan Hopkins, Jesse Seabrook, and Madison Simmonds, who just keep getting faster and proved it at their first fun race of 2014 at Commonwealth pool.

To learn more about Sooke Island Swimmers’ programs, check out the Island Swimming’s bulletin board at SEAPARC.